West continues to drift into Democrats' column

FILE - In this Dec. 6, 2012, file photo, a person holds a freshly rolled marijuana joint just after midnight at the Space Needle in Seattle. A political generation ago, the West signaled the nation's rightward swing -- from the emergence of Ronald Reagan to the success of tax limitation ballot measures in California and Colorado. But now the fabled expanse of jagged peaks, arid deserts and emerald coastlines is trending in a different direction. From Washington state -- where voters in November legalized marijuana and upheld the legality of gay marriage -- to New Mexico, once a hotly-contested swing state that Republicans ceded to Democrats in the presidential campaign, the west has become solidly Democratic terrain. The coastal base states of Washington, Oregon and California continue to move further to left, while the hotly-contested swing states east of the Sierra Nevada are trending more and more toward the Democrats.(AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)
— AP

FILE - In this Dec. 6, 2012, file photo, a person holds a freshly rolled marijuana joint just after midnight at the Space Needle in Seattle. A political generation ago, the West signaled the nation's rightward swing -- from the emergence of Ronald Reagan to the success of tax limitation ballot measures in California and Colorado. But now the fabled expanse of jagged peaks, arid deserts and emerald coastlines is trending in a different direction. From Washington state -- where voters in November legalized marijuana and upheld the legality of gay marriage -- to New Mexico, once a hotly-contested swing state that Republicans ceded to Democrats in the presidential campaign, the west has become solidly Democratic terrain. The coastal base states of Washington, Oregon and California continue to move further to left, while the hotly-contested swing states east of the Sierra Nevada are trending more and more toward the Democrats.(AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)
/ AP

There are prominent Republicans who demonstrate that the party can still win the region. Brian Sandoval in Nevada and Susana Martinez in New Mexico are popular Republican governors, but their relatively moderate stances often put them at odds with the national party. Both, for example, just agreed to the Medicaid expansion under President Barack Obama's health care plan, something that is anathema to many conservative Republicans.

"People appreciate a leader who takes more pragmatic approaches," said Nicole McCleskey, a New Mexico-based GOP pollster who advises Martinez. She argued that Democrats' success in the region is overstated and noted that, outside of California, Republicans in 2012 only lost one Western congressional seat. As an example of how Republicans can succeed, she cited New Mexico, where the party picked up seats in the state Legislature despite the Obama wave.

But McCleskey acknowledged that New Mexico Republicans were helped by the national GOP basically giving up on the presidential race in the state. GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney did not contest the state, minimizing the damage of a divisive presidential campaign.

"We were able to localize a lot of these races and build on the change that has taken place with a strong Republican governor," she said. "Republicans fought on state issues and the Democrats tried to fight on national issues."

Jill Hanauer is a Democratic strategist who engineered her party's takeover of the Colorado state Legislature in 2004. She agrees with McCleskey that the West cannot be considered a Democratic lock.

"The reason Democrats or progressives are winning is that Republicans got fat and happy," said Hanauer, who is now president of Project New America, a political data and strategy company in Denver. "The worst thing that can happen for Democrats is to take it for granted."

In 2002, Ruy Teixeira, a Washington, D.C.-based Democratic strategist, co-wrote "The Emerging Democratic Majority," which predicted that demographic and social trends would turn parts of the country that were deep red, like the interior Mountain West, into Democratic-leaning states. The book was published shortly after Republicans took back the U.S. Senate in the 2002 midterm elections and was received skeptically.

Last year, Teixeira and a bevy of other researchers published a new book on the Mountain West as America's new swing region. Now there was little pushback.

Teixeira said the West's shift has been dramatic because of the heavy migration to the region. Another factor is the ballot initiative process, which magnifies political trends by making it easier to enact dramatic policy changes like marijuana legalization.

But he argued in an interview that what's happened to the West is not very different from what's taking place across the country. Surveys for his book last year found it only slightly more libertarian on social issues and holding similar views toward government and taxation as other parts of the country. That, he said, is bad news for Republicans - their problem is national, not regional.

"It's not like there's something in the water in state X that's making them harder for Republicans," Teixeira said. "It's just the same series of changes that are working themselves out in all states."